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How much would you pay to learn how to flip homes for a profit?

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Well my guest today thinks that sort of education is worth as

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much as $34,000.

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And a lot of people actually pay it.

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Than Merrill is familiar to many Americans from his appearances on the TV

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show Flip This House.

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And he's also CEO of a company called Fortune Builders that holds seminars

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in dozens of cities, where instructors explain how to buy properties,

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fix them up and sell them for a profit.

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He joins me now from San Diego.

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Then Merrill, I attended one of your free house flipping

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seminars recently here in New York City, and I learned that

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the free two hour workshop you advertise on the radio is actually meant to

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recruit people into programs that can cost thousands of dollars.

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With the most expensive one topping out at $33,997.

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So why don't you explain why you set up your

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programs that way instead of just advertising your pricing up front.

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Sure, yeah one of the things, we've been coaching and

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educating investors for six years and I think the most important thing.

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When a student attends one of our workshops is to

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give them an introduction to what the real estate business is.

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Because real estate investing, clearly, it's not for everybody.

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There is tremendous opportunity but there's also tremendous risk and

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so I think.

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The best way we've introduced people to our education is to

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have a free 90 minute to two hour informational event.

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And then you know,

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we'll do three day workshops two to three weeks later after that.

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For those individuals who wanna learn more.

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And obviously real estate investing is a business, you know,

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I, I'm, I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't invested very early on in my

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education, and if I hadn't, you know, I've been studying the business for

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the past ten years.

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And some people think that maybe just watching a TV show or

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reading a book is.

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Enough to get started in real estate and frankly it's not.

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There's too much risk in real estate to,

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to think that that level of education is going to take somebody to,

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you know, having a successful investment career.

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So we like to introduce people to that, at our free informational workshops

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and then when they come to our three day workshops, we're training them and

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giving them a really good overview of all the different facets of the real

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estate business.

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How it works how it operates, what we've been doing for the past 10 years.

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And then for those individuals who want to continue on, and

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really make a career out of investing in real estate,

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obviously we offer coaching and consulting services after that fact.

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So, I talk to a lot of people who've been these programs.

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There's a lot of talk about this on the.

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internet, different websites.

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A lot of people are fairly critical of the program.

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And I wanna read you what one person said.

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this- Sure. Is from a website.

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Please, please before giving this scam outfit your 24,

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$25 thousand, do your research.

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Fortune builders will give you a slick presentation about they,

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how they handpick a few, select individuals to let into their circle.

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Well, you;re only special if you're willing to give them $25 thousand.

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So, other people have voiced criticism like that.

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What's your answer to that?

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I, I think you have to look at the body of work of what we've done with

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investors for the past six years.

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You know, we've been coaching and consulting with investors and

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I think our track record is pretty darn good with what we do.

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First, first of all, from, from the attendees who attend our workshop, you

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know, we've had thousands of attendees come to our three day workshop and

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at the end of each workshop we survey.

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Them, to find out their, what they thought about it.

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And we have them rate us on a scale from one to ten.

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And we consistently have rated out at a 9.5, or greater, over those years.

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And so, I think that speaks to the volumes of,

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of what we do in our workshop from a coaching perspective.

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I mean, you have to look at the entire body of work we've.

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Over the past few years we've been tracking what our students do.

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And people who have voluntarily raised their hand and

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said hey, I've been able to complete succesful real estate transactions.

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Both wholesales, rehabs, and, and buying old properties.

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It's over 2000 unique individuals.

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And that's people who have done just a handful of deals to people that

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are now doing multiple deals a month.

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So.

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I know from the results standpoint, we've we've overall, our,

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our business has been really,

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really successful from what we've been able to do for our students.

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Of course, there are people that are critical.

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There, there are people that you know,

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can go online and, and have some criticism about a business.

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I mean, we are a big business but

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I think the most important thing is just looking at the [INAUDIBLE].

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Entire body of work and, and talking to students that have actually been

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through the program and, and applied themselves and executed the business.

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So and I, and to be fair I, I do acknowledge on,

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on the same websites where some of these complaints are, there are also

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defenders who say you know everybody doesn't, this isn't for everybody and

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you know if you don't think, if you think you're gonna have easy money.

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Maybe this isn't for you but I do wanna bring up one other complaint that

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really stands out on some of these websites.

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Sure. And I, again,

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I also talk to people who have the same complaint which is that when you

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do introduce these expensive programs costing thousands of dollars,

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there's a lot of pressure upon people to,

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to put [INAUDIBLE] to, you put the cost of that on credit cards.

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And even to apply for new credit cards or

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ask the issuer to raise your credit limit, if necessary, to afford that.

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Now, just about any consumer advocate would say that it's absolutely

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the worst thing to do, to put any unnecessary expense on a credit card,

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especially when you're gonna get double-digit interest rates.

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So, you're trying to help people get ahead.

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Why are you urging them to put.

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You know, ten, twenty, thirty thousand dollars on a credit card,

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especially if they might not be able to pay it off right away.

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well, I wouldn't say we're urging anybody to do anything.

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All of our students who come through our program are adults.

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Many of them are active investors.

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Some of them are new investors.

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And every single one of them understands that they're starting a business.

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I mean, to.

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To get a college degree you have to utilize credit, you have to get.

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You know, I went to school I utilized student loans to go through school.

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I think the worst thing that you could ever do is invest in

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real estate without an education.

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And, I think there are people that talk about the good uses of credit and

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the bad uses.

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You know, when you use credit to go out there and buy a liability like

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a big screen TV or an Escalade, that's utilizing credit the wrong way.

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But if you're utilizing credit to get.

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And education.

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You know, I wouldn't be here today if I hadn't have spent and

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invested thousands of dollars in my own education.

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I know students that have been through our program have financed it

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in a variety of different ways.

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And they're, they're starting a business.

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I mean, America is founded on credit.

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And people that are starting businesses, I would say probably,

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I don't have an actual statistic.

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But I would say the overwhelming majority of them are financing on

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them using business lines of credit, personal lines of credit.

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I mean, they're starting a business and getting an education.

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And so I believe very strongly in the value of credit.

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My very first few properties, I financed the construction cost.

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Using credit cards.

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I financed my education utilizing credit cards.

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So it's no different.

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Although you know, at a university, you're gonna go to school.

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And you're gonna get an educational loan to go through school to

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better yourself.

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I mean, the most important asset, the single most important asset I

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think you can invest in is your education.

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And so investors are looking to improve their lives.

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Whether they choose to finance it, you know, utilizing cash or

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savings or something of that veh.

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I mean, that's completely up, up to what they do and

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we do have students who ask us, hey, how can I do this?

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And if we can point them.

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There's some good financing sources.

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It's no different than a university pi,

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pointing somebody to a financing source to get a degree.

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So. So. You know, I believe in what we teach.

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I know the value that it brings to students and

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so I believe whole-heartedly in, in utilizing credit.

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I mean, you're starting a business and, and

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you're gonna need to utilize credit to do that.

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Since you're making that comparison with colleges and universities,.

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It seems important to draw a few distinctions.

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First of all, universities are accredited, and nobody's likely to

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get approved for financing, whether it's a subsidized loan or

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a private loan, for a university that's not accredited.

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Second, nobody really puts the cost of college on a credit card.

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If you get a subsidized loan,

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it might be a three or four percent interest rate.

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A private loan would be higher.

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But you're still not going to put that on your credit card at 10,

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15 or 20% interest.

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And third colleges and universities have to disclose all their costs.

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And beyond that they have to actually have

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something called a net cost calculator on their websites so people can

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figure out what the real bottom line cost is, when you boil it all down so,

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why don't you adopt a more transp, transparent business model like that.

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And perhaps even come up with some financing options for

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people that aren't 20 percent on a credit card?

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Sure, what, they, you had a lot of questions there so

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let me address each one of them, in order.

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First, first of all,

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absolutely we're different than an accredited university.

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I, I believe an accredited university has a place.

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If, you know, if you're, if you want to advance.

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Your career and get an extra degree, or you want, you know, most people

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that go to accredited universities, we're taught when we're raised to

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go to an accredited university and get a degree so we can get a good job.

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We're on the other completely side, other end of the spectrum.

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We're teaching people how to start a business.

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And the only financing sources we have for people that are.

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Trying to start a business.

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I mean, if you're buying a franchise, or investing in a franchise,

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they have financing sources business lines of credit and

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personal lines of credit.

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There aren't student loans for this type of education.

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I so what we'll do is we will point if, if a student asks, we will

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absolutely point them to the best financing sources that we know available.

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And they're not all double digit credit card, believe me there's a lot of

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zero percent interest business lines of credit for a very short period of

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time or personal lines of credit for 12 month period of time.

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So we're gonna try to give them the best financing sources that we can.

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Not to say that everybody it util, utilizing credit I think.

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You, you know.

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You're asking a question.

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And kinda pinpointing one financing source that people utilize to,

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to get started with our program.

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There's many people that just write a check.

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There's many people that have assets that they,

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they've accumulated over the years to get involved with the program.

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So I think we're very clear about the costs.

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People know exa, I mean, they're there with us for three days.

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They know the costs.

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To start a business and they know it, it's definitely not for everybody.

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I mean, you, you have to be able to financially afford the program.

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You have to have the time to do the program.

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Okay, Stan Merrill, thank you very much for joining us.

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Real estate investors of America, tell us what you think.

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Is flipping worth it, and would you pay to play?

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Tell us in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter.

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